Minimum supported OS versions - request for comment

[jbelkins]

In the interest of keeping AWS SDK for Swift modern and maintainable, we're considering dropping support for some older Apple platforms later this year. This would simplify our testing & support burden by having to ensure the SDK works across less OS versions, and enables us to use newer Swift features that depend on runtime support provided by the host OS.

The AWS SDK for Swift's minimum supported OS versions would change as follows:

• macOS 10.15 -> 12
• iOS / iPad OS 13 -> 16
• tvOS 13 -> 16
• watchOS 6 -> 9
• visionOS will remain unchanged; we will continue to support all versions.
• Linux support will also be unchanged (Swift on Linux has less dependence on the host OS for support.)

For reference, all of these proposed minimum supported OS versions were released in Fall 2022. An informal survey of popular iOS apps in the App Store shows a minimum supported iOS of at least iOS 15.0 for the vast majority of apps, so making this move later in 2025 sounds unlikely to cause problems with adoption or compatibility. (I do not know for sure when apps increase their minimum supported OS but I suspect it primarily happens in the fall, when new major versions are released.)

We're interested in your feedback on this plan; please reply below if you have questions/concerns. Again, no decisions have been made & no dates have been set; we are only looking for feedback at this time.